Jack Loves Callie Tender (A Southern Cousins Mystery prequel, companion guide and cookbook)

by Webb, Peggy

  “Why not?”

  Was that me? Making small talk in a town I intended to leave as fast as I could?

  “I’m supposed to be on the farm helping my mother get ready for her annual barbecue.”

  I knew just where that farm was located. I was shocked to find myself making plans to find it.

  I’d driven a long way and I was tired and needed a good night’s sleep before I hit the road again. I was hungry, too, and I had to eat somewhere. I didn’t like driving at night, and a soft bed would feel good. Those were all the things I told myself.

  Fact was, though, I wanted to be any place I could see that face again. Hear that laugh.

  When I had smashed into Callie Valentine, she’d done more than land in my arms. She’d somehow managed to get under my skin. The only way I knew to get her out was go down to the farm, turn on what little charm I had left after years of getting shot at, stabbed, beat up and generally pissed off, and then take her to the nearest motel. One night ought to do it. No more than two.

  o0o

  Of course you already know that my human daddy never did get Callie out of his system.

  But what I really want to stress is that my human mom did not go to the motel with Jack Jones. Callie is not that kind of woman. If she were, she wouldn’t deserve a fine dog like me.

  And speaking of Callie, here she comes in her Dodge Ram with the rip-snorting Hemi engine. You’d think a feminine woman like her whose job is making the women of Mooreville and surrounding areas beautiful up at Hair.Net would be driving a snazzy Thunderbird convertible. Pink to match the décor of her beauty shop. Not to mention that it was my signature color in my other life as a pop icon.

  I think Callie chose a truck because it’s her alter ego. She likes to believe that when the occasion calls for it, she can be as bad as the next bad girl. But don’t let her fool you. There’s no sweeter, more big-hearted woman in the world.

  To prove my point, the minute she says goodbye to Ruby Nell and Fayrene and loads me into the truck, she scratches behind my ears and gives me a Milk Bone for large breed dogs. Bassets are not large breed, as she well knows. But she also knows that a portly dog of my importance deserves the biggest and the best.

  Callie is smarter than most humans. Well, Jack and Lovie are, too.

  Even Ruby Nell has her moments. With her penchant for gambling and her preference for dancing with the wrong kind of senior stud, she may try to fool you into thinking she’s all fluff and no substance. But it takes gumption to pull yourself up after your husband goes to Glory Land on a John Deere tractor and raise a fine daughter like Callie. Not to mention, start a business all by herself, Everlasting Monuments. She made a success of it, too, mostly by writing snazzy tombstone sayings like, “Luther Green, trumpet player extraordinaire, caught a first class flight to Glory Land and is up there tooting his own horn.”

  Listen, if you want to know the truth about these humans under my care, you’d do well to ask yours truly.

  Chapter Two

  Now you might think as we barrel along rural Highway 371 I’d have my nose pressed against the window to see if I could spot a silly Holstein chewing his cud by Ruby Nell’s lake or a foolish rabbit flashing his white tail across the pasture. But I’m not that kind of dog. I’m a dog on a mission.

  Still, while I’m licking Callie’s face to cheer her up, I sneak a peek and see a silly cottontail just moseying along as if he owns the whole farm. What rabbit in his right mind would show himself to a dog with a nose that can sniff out prey a mile away? And on my turf, to boot? (Anything that belongs to the Valentines belongs to me.) Doesn’t he know my favorite pastime on the farm is chasing foolhardy bunnies like him? Well, next to lolling on the front porch listening to the mess my humans make of their lives.

  Call it eavesdropping if you want to. But how will I know how to fix it if I don’t know the problem?

  Currently the problem is Callie trying to deal with her mixed feelings over her almost ex. We’ll be home in less than five minutes, and she’s nervous as a tribute artist trying to do the King justice with a watered-down version of “Blue Suede Shoes.” Nobody has the pipes of yours truly.

  “What am I going to do, Elvis?”

  I howl a few bars of “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You,” a sweet little song I turned into a hit in 1957 when I had a head full of black hair and two legs instead of four. Next, I put my magnificent head in Callie’s lap because I know this comforts her.

  I just wish she could read my mind like I can read hers. Humans don’t have to say much for a brilliant basset like me to get the picture. She’s wondering what she’s going to do because it’s obvious she and Jack still love each other. But she’s also remembering back to the first night she met Jack Jones, the night he followed her to Ruby Nell’s Fourth of July picnic.

  This is one of my favorite stories.

  o0o

  Callie

  Lovie was not too happy after I dropped the phone at Ballard Park and left her hanging.

  “For Pete’s sake, Callie! I’ve been standing in hundred degree heat over Aunt Ruby Nell’s barbecue pits wondering whether to find Daddy or call the cops.”

  “I dropped the phone.”

  “Now, me…I’m clumsy enough to do that. But you…that’s just not your style. What the devil happened?”

  “A man ran me down on the track and knocked it out of my hand.”

  Lovie said a word that would get her banned from church. “Tell me who he is and I’ll come out there and personally teach him some manners.”

  “He’s not like that. Really, Lovie. He was very nice. And dangerously good looking.”

  “Who is he?”

  “He didn’t say and I was too flustered to ask. I think he’s French.”

  “He spoke French?”

  “Not all the time. Just when he left.”

  “What did he say?”

  “How do I know? A whole bunch of stuff. The only word I understood was goodbye.”

  “Let me get this straight. The first man you’ve paid attention to in years is – in your own words – dangerously good looking, and is French, to boot, and you let him get away. ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?”

  “Not since I escaped from Mama’s barbecue and cleared my head with a short run. How’s it going down there?”

  “I am up to my neck in barbecue sauce and up to my knees in cow shit. Get yourself out here before I go stark raving crazy.”

  “Hang in there, Lovie. I’m on the way.”

  I hurried back to the farm kicking myself that I had not even found out the man in black’s name. It wasn’t as if a woman my age – thirty and teetering on the brink of old-maid-hood, according to Mama and Fayrene – met an interesting man every day. For goodness sake, contrary to what most of the residents think, Mooreville is not the hub of society.

  Lovie was sure to lecture me on letting the Frenchman get away. When it comes to the opposite sex, she’s the family expert. She’d had more boyfriends in the last year than I’ve had in a lifetime. Not that I aspired to her track record. But I did aspire to having a family with lots of kids. And that wasn’t going to happen until I found Mr. Right.

  Imagine my surprise to find him (the man in black, who might or might not turn out to be Mr. Right) down on Mama’s farm talking to Jarvetis in German! I couldn’t find Fayrene fast enough.

  She and Mama were over at the picnic table shooing flies off the fruit salad. They waved and motioned me over.

  “Fayrene, who is that man talking to Jarvetis?”

  “He’s a handsome Spaniard.”

  “No, he’s not,” Mama said. “He’s from Rome.”

  “He’s Spanish or I’m not standing here shooing flies off this erotic fruit.”

  Fayrene probably meant exotic, but with that stranger in black turning the heads of every woman with a rack of ribs on her plate, chances were good she meant what she’d said.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Fayrene. I he
ard him speaking Italian as plain as day.”

  Holy cow! I should have known better than to ask those two. What did it matter who he was, anyhow? I had business to attend to. Playing hostess at Mama’s annual shindig was my job, and I intended to do it right. Besides, it was also good for business. I had plenty of cards from Hair.Net in my pocket, and I when I spotted an ugly hairdo, believe me, I didn’t miss a chance to pass them out.

  I was in the midst of handing a business card to a woman with a bad dye job when Mr. Italian/Spanish/German and no telling what all else walked right up to me and took my arm. Before I could say hello or kiss my foot, he’d walked me behind the grapevine and planted a smooch on me the likes of which you only see in movies.

  When I got my breath back – and some of my common sense - I told him off.

  “I don’t know what kind of woman you think I am, but not that kind.”

  Well, I sort of told him off.

  “And what kind would that be?”

  Was he kidding me? Laughing at me? Besides, his accent was pure Southwest. It had Texas written all over.

  “You’re not from Rome.”

  “I’m from Dallas.”

  That was the first of many states he said he hailed from…and the first of many kisses.

  Before I knew what had happened, I was head over heels in love with Jack Jones, a man with a background so murky it would take me several years to get at the truth. Or as much truth as he wanted me to know.

  o0o

  My human dad swept my human mom off her feet. Like I said, he didn’t end up in a sleazy motel getting Callie out of his system. Instead, he ended up in Hair.Net every day for the next week with a gift in his hands. Sometimes, it was a dozen pink roses. (Jack is smart. It didn’t take him long to figure out pink is Callie’s signature color.) Sometimes it was a bottle of gardenia perfume, her personal favorite. Don’t ask how he knew. If I told you I’d have to kill you.

  Other times it was a bunch of wildflowers he’d picked on the farm, Queen Anne’s lace and black eyed Susans.

  The man who swore he was passing through stuck around to court in an old-fashioned way. And he was smart enough to do it in a public place in front of witnesses. He had Ruby Nell and Fayrene swooning at his feet. Not to mention, every woman in Mooreville and surrounding counties.

  Even Lovie was impressed. And let me tell you, it takes a lot to impress Lovie.

  Here’s the way she tells it.

  o0o

  Lovie

  I knew from day one Callie was a goner. I’ve had my share of boyfriends, with more than one fiancé thrown in for good measure, but I’d never met a man who told that many lies but made me trust him anyhow. There was something about Jack Jones… Not just the looks. Not just that he was wonderful to Callie. Not just the fact that he was fluent in five or six languages. There was something about the way he looked right in your eyes that made you instinctively know he was a good man.

  And I told Callie so on more than one occasion. She’s smart, and she might look and act like she knows exactly what she’s doing at all times, but underneath that façade, my cousin is really a bit terrified of life.

  “Jack Jones scares me to death, Lovie,” she told me on the phone late one night. About one week into their courtship, if I remember correctly.

  “He’s nothing to be scared of, Cal. Just have a good time and go with the flow.”

  “Everywhere we go there’s some strange woman lurking around spying on us. And there’s a man, too.”

  Now I’d seen the women trailing Jack. Two in particular, a blond bombshell with a bad bleach job and a sharp-faced, sophisticated number who looked like she would as soon snap your neck in two as look at you. But the man was news to me.

  “What’s he like?”

  “You can’t miss him. He’s huge. Bulked up like a professional boxer, or maybe a cowboy who wrestles steers.”

  “Does he have a mole on his neck?”

  “Holy cow, Lovie. How would I know? I didn’t get that close and don’t plan to.”

  “Maybe Jack has a bodyguard.”

  “Why on earth wouldn’t he say so?”

  “Do you tell him everything, Cal?” I knew when things got deathly quiet on her end of the phone line that she didn’t. Furthermore, I knew what she hadn’t told him. Cal wants children more than any sane woman I’ve ever known. And trust me, Jack Jones, is not the domestic type.

  “I guess not,” she finally said.

  “Listen, Cal. Grab this man before those two heifers – and Lord knows how many more - get their claws into him. And don’t waste any time discussing names and colleges for your kids. You’ll have plenty of time for that after the wedding.”

  “What wedding?”

  “Yours and Jack’s. I’m already planning the menu for the reception.”

  That wasn’t exactly a lie. I’m the best caterer this side of the Mississippi River. I do more weddings in one week than the rest of in this town does in a month. I’m always thinking of food.

  Well, I think about food for personal reasons, too. I’m my own best customer, which accounts for my hundred-ninety pound bombshell looks.

  Still, the fact that Callie didn’t protest when I mentioned wedding let me know that I’d better get busy. Once Jack popped the question, Aunt Ruby Nell was going to want to the biggest society wedding in Mooreville’s history.

  o0o

  The rest of that story is that Lovie actually did get busy planning the reception, right down to stocking cheese for the cheese balls and planning pink icing for the petit fours.

  She even consulted Ruby Nell, and the two of them took a secret trip up to Memphis and bought dresses – rose for mother of the bride and petal pink for the bridesmaid.

  They stopped just short of picking out Callie’s wedding dress.

  Still when the time came, they were armed with the name of the perfect bridal shop and a seamstress who could do alterations at the drop of a hat – and a hundred dollar bribe from Ruby Nell, according to beauty shop gossip.

  Actually, Ruby Nell, herself, was the one who spread the gossip. I heard that story just last week while I was lolling on the pink guitar shaped doggie pillow Callie keeps at Hair.Net for yours truly. Ruby Nell was sitting at the manicure table while Darlene added rhinestones to her Five Alarm Fire fingernail polish.

  The minute Callie went to the back to mix color for Ruby Nell’s latest change, she started telling the wedding dress story. The latest juicy tidbit of gossip ripped through the shop and out the door faster than a spring tornado.

  Naturally, I was all ears. Anything that concerns my human mom is my business. And let me tell you, if anybody had said anything harmful, they’d have come up with a sharp reprimand in the ankle. (Listen, don’t tell me a German Shepherd can take down a two-hundred pound man. I know my legs are short. But a smart basset doesn’t have to resort to major violence. A well-timed warning will do. We know how to save our energy for the important stuff – like licking a human’s face when they’re blue and being a foot-warmer in the winter and using our considerable charm to get a second stick of Pup-Peroni although we’ve been put on a diet and our human mom swore we could only have one.)

  Chapter Three

  Now, daydreaming about how I can use all these wedding stories circulating around Mooreville to gain my end (I don’t have to repeat myself. You already know what that is), I’m settling in for the rest of the ride when Callie’s cell phone rings.

  I know after the first hellos who’s on the other end of the line. Listen, I may not be the dog who brings in the Best of Show trophy, but I’m the one whose mismatched ears can hear both ends of a telephone conversation.

  “Callie,” Ruby Nell says, “Fayrene and I are having an argument.”

  What’s new, Callie mutters, but that’s not that she says to her Mama.

  “I’m sorry. But you two will settle it. You always do.”

  “I called so you could settle it.”

  “Holy cow, M
ama. I’ve given two perms and done four colors today. I don’t want to turn back around just so I can mediate a little disagreement that you two are perfectly capable of handling. I want to get home and have a cup of hot chocolate.”

  Callie knows logic won’t deter Ruby Nell, but she always tries.

  “Fayrene says Jack proposed to you up at Gas, Grits and Guts during a flea market in the parking lot, but I know good and well he did no such thing.”

  “No, he did not, Mama.”

  “I told her so, but she wouldn’t listen. Jack proposed on my front porch. “

  “No, he didn’t, Mama.”

  “I distinctly remember that he hired a band.”

  “He hired a man to play the guitar while he played the harmonica. But that was at Lovie’s birthday party. And it was after we were married.”

  “Well, I could have sworn there was music at the proposal.”

  “There was, Mama.”

  “See. I knew it.”

  “But it didn’t happen on your porch.”

  “Don’t tell Fayrene.”

  This comes over the phone as a whisper. I can just picture Ruby Nell turning her back and cupping the cell phone so Fayrene won’t hear. And she’s probably right. Fayrene’s getting hard of hearing. For that matter, so is Ruby Nell.

  It’s a good thing they have me around for their golden years. These royal ears never miss a trick.

  Sometimes when I’m moping around about getting sent back in a dog suit, I think about the way humans age – loss of hearing, teeth, hair and bladder control. It’s no wonder I got sent back as a basset. The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll never had to go through those indignities in his other life, and now I won’t have to go through them in this one.

  Age just makes dogs more noble. Sure we might lose a little hearing, but we’ve got so much in the first place, we’ll never miss it.

  “I won’t tell her,” Callie tells Ruby Nell, then she shuts her off her cell phone and reaches to scratch my ears.

  I can feel my human mom’s relief. With Jack waiting at the house, Callie’s in no mood to go into details of his long-ago proposal.